Friday, 28 February 2014

Nestboxes and nests

As the nesting season is supposed to start on 1st March, I thought I'd check the eight nestboxes we put up last spring (see blog post for 18/3/13).  Well we know one had been broken up but I could only find four of them.  It's not immediately obvious to me how to tell if they are occupied.
 
 
But something has been happening on this one.  Either a nuthatch, a woodpecker or more likely a squirrel has been trying to make the hole bigger.

 
The nest boxes are for small hole-nesting birds like tits but what I did find was loads of nests in the trees.


 
Some are probably pigeons and maybe we have some crows. The ball-shaped one (photo below right) is a magpie, I think.  They include a roof on theirs.

 
Some nests are quite close together but I don't think we have a rookery yet.  Rooks prefer bigger trees - and they make a lot of noise.
 
 
These trees certainly need thinning out, don't they.





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